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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Why do I have so much clothing??

This is a photo I took today of my side of the closet:

And this is my husband's side of the closet:

As my husband frequently asks, why do I have so many clothes?? And this doesn't even include all my pants (I have an entire dresser of pants) and non-work shirts. I never buy clothes. OK, I did recently buy maternity clothes, but I didn't have much choice in the matter unless I wanted to come to work with my stomach exposed. But I've gotten rid of those clothes and look how much I still have! Despite the fact that I feel like I wear the same 5-6 shirts over and over.

And worse, every morning I stare into the closet and think to myself that I have nothing to wear. I seriously do that.

Part of the problem is that I like to always pair a sweater with my work shirts because it's a little hard to predict whether the hospital will be freezing or sweltering. (It has nothing to do with the weather outside.) I usually look a lot like this:

So that requires me to have twice as many clothes.

But I suspect the bigger problem is that I can't ever bring myself to throw anything out. I save shirts until they're just about falling apart at the seams because maybe I'll want to wear them again. Or I save shirts that I hate (usually gifts) because I never wore them and I can't bear to get rid of something that's basically brand new. Or maybe one day I'll lose a lot of weight and be able to wear those pants again. It could happen!!

I know I've got to go through my closet and make some hard choices. I just can't seem to bring myself to do it.

15 comments:

I'm more inclined to say that your husband doesn't have enough clothes :P ...Unless he has more casual, no-hangers-needed clothes stashed elsewhere. I also don't think you have an excessive number of clothes, even if your pants aren't shown. I've seen WAY worse.

Since I do most of my shopping at 2nd-hand shops, and usually pay less than 3EUR per piece, I've been able to get into a mentality where I can tell myself "I just don't wear that any more", bundle it up, and donate it back (either to the same shop I usually shop at, or to the Red Cross who have a pick-up bin just across the street from us), without feeling like I've wasted money.

My husband, on the other hand, hates shopping so much that he's reluctant to EVER get rid of anything he's successfully bought. Which means that when something reaches the point of no repair, I set it aside, and use it to repair other things (usually holes in elbows and knees). These repairs eventually wear out and need to be repaired again; he now has some shirts whose patches have been patched. Luckily he doesn't wear them out of the house.

OMDG: My husband seems to go through clothes faster than me somehow, which might be why he has less. I do have clothes that I wore in college, but his stuff seems to get ripped after a couple of years.

Try at least donating the ones that were gifts that you don't like. At least they will get used and maybe that will help you get the ball rolling.I have a really hard time purging my closet but once I start it feels really good.

We have way more clothes than both of you, but we do an bi-annual cull. We each go through each others closet and pick out the clothes we have not seen the other wear for the last 6 months. The owner then gets to veto 2 choices out of the stack and the rest goes to Purple Heart.(unless it is ratty, then it goes to the art smock pile at Sunday School)

Great pics. I tend to wear the same things (plain solid dark colors) over and over, and also find it hard to throw away (I try to give away) old stuff. Get your husband some more clothes! Thanks for the entertaining post, as usual.

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